Small Victories

They say always make the best out of a bad situation, and right now I am trying to do just that:

So for legal reasons (I fear the "paper" trail I leave on the internet; I'd rather if anyone ever searched my name on the internet, all you'd get was corgi videos), but I've been in contact with a number of people in the past couple of weeks.  This post is meant to reassure people.

To sum up (要するに), there were some people in power like this:

Or:

And I was like, "Bitch, you gotta be kidding."  Then I went all,

But in realizing this would not win any of the battles I had to face, I screwed up whatever remaining courage I had (and then faked the rest) and got ready to go to war. You'd think I'd be used to this already.

Clearly I didn't quite start winning (#winning hash tag: click this hyperlink at your own risk) immediately.  I felt like those higher up were taunting me and doing the chicken dance:

And then I was all like,

And tried to glue my armor back together (believe me, that shit crumbled in that last week before I had to leave) to take those assholes down:

Right now I'm still fighting the good fight, though really I'm just exhausted and it seems like for every small victory I win, there's always something that happens to remind of just how small they actually are.  Everyone has their own sob story related to their study abroad status, but it does drive me insane how easy it seems to come for others compared to what I have to do just to squeak by.  Granted, my situation could always be worse, but my administrative problems on top of the situation I'm tackling with my apartment are wearing on my already frazzle nerves.  A good part of the time I just feel completely powerless, like a little corgi puppy just not as cute:

PUT ME DOWWWWWNNNN!!!

I just need a break, but I can't really see how I will have one just yet.  There is no one to do the legwork for me on protecting what I've got in my tiny corner of the universe.  I'm sure I'm sounding a bit dramatic here, but if I don't do something to help myself, then I'll be stuck writing yet another goddamned research paper and doing the academic work that I am so over at this point.  And don't even get me started on UW's study abroad office.  They seem to think I am something out of a cartoon:

Basically the whole situation right now has evolved from me crying every day to me being Madeleine Kahn... well, not entirely because I'm not that awesome, but you know:

It's just so weird being around the campus again.  I packed up my life in Seattle, said my good-byes and expected to be here only to visit people and tear the city up.  Living here is like being in limbo.  To go off on a reference that maybe 1 or 2 people might understand, there was an episode of The X-Files in the 7th season involving a disgruntled genie who - of course - granted mutated versions of everyone's wishes.  One guy wishes for his boss to shut up (skin grows over the guy's mouth), then for a boat (in no water and let's not get started on the taxes on that thing), and finally for invisibility.  The last one gets him run over by a truck, and his wheelchair-bound brother (a result of your typical mailbox baseball accident) takes control of the genie and wishes his brother back to life.  But bringing someone back from the dead isn't so easy: his second wish is spent making his brother talk rather than just sitting and smelling like a rotting corpse.  The zombie brother then screams as though all he sees are the headlights of an oncoming truck, and eventually when he does speak in full sentences, he keeps asking "why did you bring me back?"  That's about how I feel right now: like someone has brought me back from the dead and I'm supposed to somehow return to normal and I can't.  I go through the motions on campus and my muscle memory is strong enough that I know where to go and what I need to do, but every once in awhile I just stop and think WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE.  I know it hasn't even been a week yet, but mentally I am just not all here.  I have trouble recalling details and facts due to just being confused all the time, and I'm wondering when I will return to normal. 

At this point, I just have to be happy with what I have and forget about everyone else.  What was nice this morning was seeing other UW Japan study abroad students who feel fucked over by the administration here ('sup Nicole and Phil); I can rant and rave and bitch and scream all I want to my friends (and I'm pretty sure they're tired of hearing it), but it helps to have a sympathetic ear that's going through the same thing.  Existentially, my biggest problem right now is trying not to grow into an embittered husk of a human being.  It used to be that I was happy enough to wallow in my misery and feel sorry for myself, but I like to think I've grown past that.  My situation is manageable so long as everyone works with me on it; I just have to make sure I do not lose my sense of humor in the process.  The second I stop being funny and am entirely bitter is when someone needs to pull me aside and snap me out of it.

Hence this post.  If I can amuse myself in writing it and amuse others when they read it, then I feel like I've accomplished something. 

Also, poll at the top about retitling my blog!  Help a gal out, please.  I'm having to make so many decisions as of late that this is one that I'd rather leave to someone else.